k-drama endings and mutual disillusion
by lopekya
Summary: "The world is ending tomorrow, and you're doing maths?" His voice twangs with disbelief and incredulity. Shoulders relaxing, her pencil runs across the paper, cross-multiplying fractions, calculating proportions. In which Singapore is still indecisive, and Hong Kong decides, to hell with it all.


_"Like, where are you?"_

"In my bomb shelter. I was solving quadratic equations until you _so rudely_ interrupted me." She replies sardonically, flipping a page as her bony shoulder presses the cellphone to her ear. An uncomfortable position, but necessary for the task at hand. The wind picks up. She cringes.

 _"The world is ending tomorrow, and you're doing maths?"_ His voice twangs with disbelief and incredulity. Shoulders relaxing, her pencil runs across the paper, cross-multiplying fractions, calculating proportions.

"The O-Level papers aren't going to be answered, at least not for a long time." She can almost see him now, a frown creasing his forehead as he rakes a hand through his choppy brown hair.

 _"Aren't you, like, nervous?"_

A dry, mirthless laugh bubbles out of her throat, startling the sparrows still bold enough to remain. Her voice is bare, stripped of emotion. "No, _bodoh_. Terrified."

 _"Oh."_ A painfully awkward pause in the conversation ensures. There is a multitude words that she wants to say, and yet they catch in her throat, the honey-sweet endearments too much for her acerbic tongue. She curses her indifferent persona, one that clings to her skin, a permanent mask, a shield that would never fall to any arrows. At least, that was what she had always believed. Emotions were merely a hindrance. That phrase has been hammered in, over and over. There had been one mistake too many.

"I–" But still the traitorous words rush out without thinking, until her pragmatic side shoves them back down. Perhaps...perhaps...no. It was better to die uncertain than to die with 'what ifs' and 'what could have beens'. Injecting a good dose of chilled venom into her voice, she finished off.

"—strongly dislike you still. Get to the point, Hong Kong. Why did you call me?" Never hate, however. She would loathe him, detest him, be disgusted by him, and so on, with every synonym that she could come up with in all four of her languages , but never hate. Never, ever, hate. She doesn't question the exclusion of that word, preferring to shove the queries out of sight, out of mind.

He exhales sharply, the sound garbled by the nearly overwhelming static. "I-You know what, fuck it, I don't care anymore." Her heart skips a beat, chest clenching painfully as her hand grips the pencil like a lifeline. Her semblance of calmness cracks pathetically. _Don't tell me this don't don't don't please I don't want you to die Hong Kong_ _**please-**_

" _I was the one who stole your durian ice cream at the last World Conference."_

Oh.

"You little piece of-" And then she's laughing, laughing at how stupid the situation had been, laughing at the fact that she had actually expected him, of all people, to do something so dramatic and similar to one of Korea's dramas at the last minute. Of course not. That simply wasn't Hong Kong at all. Shaking her head, she scrubs roughly at her eyes with one hand. How foolish and disgustingly lovesick of her to think so, that everything would work out and he would-!

" _...and I'd never thought that I'll, like, say this, but I love you."_ The laughter catches in her throat. Oh. _Oh._ Her heart explodes into an irregular rhythm. Vision tunneling rapidly, a cacophony of whirling pulses erupts in her mind, and the phone falls to the ground.

"Fuck!" The expletive is out of her mouth before she knows it, but who gives a damn about being prim and proper now. Snatching it up, she presses it to her ear, mind whirling still.

"Hello? Hong Kong? Hong Kong?"

There is nothing but static.

Her fingers stumble over the buttons. She redials, calls again and again and again until she ceases for fear of trigger finger syndrome. With feigned optimism, Singapore sets her phone on vibrate, and waits.

Perhaps there's isn't a signal. His phone could have run out of battery? Unless it's hers that simply isn't working, or...?

Hope gives way to the mindset of the realist. Her hands hover over the papers, hesitating momentarily before briskly shuffling them together neatly and sliding them into a ledge under the table. Her stationery is carefully tucked in as well.

Tracing the lines of the stone chess board set into the table, she unwinds her legs from the pretzel position they had been in. Her legs tingle with pins and needles. She takes in the creamy yellow uniform flats, feels the people shut inside, making ready, perhaps having their last meal. The cool surface of the table gently caresses her cheek as she rests her forehead on her arms. In a matter of hours, minutes, or maybe even seconds, it would be time.

In a perfect world, they would both survive. Perhaps they would find each other, world would not end. A fairytale ending. Pure, wishful, thinking, that of a little girl who had run around in pinafores and curled up with brightly coloured storybooks. Alas, for the pinafores had been replaced with crisp business suits, and the fantasy tales with papers of words and statistics, though the little girl was still there, somewhere deep down. The little girl had always believed in happy ever afters.

The young woman had become disillusioned by them.

Thus, she was never in her bomb shelter to begin with.

As it turned out, neither was he.

* * *

 **I've always been a sucker for apocalypse fics, no matter how cliche my mind tells me they are. There might be a sequel...or I could just leave this up to your imaginations. (and really, they could have both died, or one could have survived, or both, and so on...the possibilities are endless. I should write all three.)** **Anyway, I merely writing here to hopefully improve my dismal writing skills, so do give me constructive criticism, please! That would be lovely. Thank you!**

 **P.S. My first 1k one-shot!? What is this monstrosity!?**


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